182?.] Notes for the Month. 293 



and the assistance of a temperature say equal to that of 60. The situations 

 particularly active in producing it, are as nearly as we can collect all fens^ 

 meadows, and marshes ; spots contiguous to woods and copses, and spots 

 where there are neither woods nor copses. All places near water whether 

 fresh or salt stagnant or running in ponds, rivers, ships' holds, or house 

 cellars ; and a great many places near which no water is to be found. A hot 

 climate, like that of Africa or Italy, suits the generation of the poisonous 

 matter best; but a cold one, like that of Holland, answers the purpose very 

 tolerably well. And the ailments which the noxious exhalations produce, 

 are all that can bo found in the Dictionary of Diseases ; from typhus 

 fever down to the tooth-ache. As these assertions seem rather sweeping, 

 we ought to shew that we have authority for them ; but our extracts can 

 only consist of single lines ; and we must refer our readers, for fuller 

 satisfaction, to the book itself, which, although we do not agree in the 

 conclusions drawn in it, is entertaining, and will repay their perusal. 

 Salt water and fresh are equally pernicious. 



" While it is generally believed that marshes of fresh water are productive of 

 malaria, it is scarcely a less common opinion that salt marskes are innocent in this 

 respect. Other circumstances being the same, it is indifferent whether the marsh 

 be salt or fresh." pp. 35, 38. 



As water may be the death of a man, although he is not born to be 

 drowned, so wood will be dangerous even to those who have no apprehen- 

 sion of a drier destiny. 



" The power of woods in generating malaria is not less notorious than that of 

 marshes. If any one will examine the districts in Kent and Sussex, which produce 

 both intermittent and remittent fevers, he will often be unable to assign a cause, 

 unless he seeks it in the woods, &c." pp. 42. 



Meadow land, independent of any marshy character, makes it necessary 

 for every man to order his coffin who goes to inhabit near it. 



" If some of the great tracts of meadow land in this country have once been 

 marshes, it is certain that there are many of them which are now purely meadows. 

 And yet that these do produce the diseases of malaria is familiar to every one's 

 experience." p. 73. 



On the other hand, wood occasionally is a protection. 



" If woods or trees do, in sufficiently numerous cases, generate malaria, and thus 

 tender a district unhealthy, they are also often a safeguard; and a country which 

 was before healthy may become the reverse by cutting them down. Reversely, it 

 follows that the planting of trees will sometimes check the production of malaria, 

 &c." pp. 43, 44. 



On the folly of supposing that running water, under any circumstances, 

 is innoxious, the author insists very strongly. 



" It is not only a popular but a rooted opinion in England, that there can be no 

 malaria produced near a running river, or stream of any nature; an error beyond 

 doubt, and one of which the consequences may be serious. The fact as regards the 

 Thames 1 have already noticed. There is no reason to doubt that such streams as 

 the Ouse and the Lee are productive of malaria. And abundant facts have shewn 

 that such diseases exist habitually and endemically, on the banks of streams even 

 of the smallest size ; or those for example which flow, almost like artificial canals, 

 through ?haven lawns that border them with a thin and grassy margin." p. 80. 



" 1 may add here an instance of the mill dam of a paper-mill in Hertfordshire; 

 after the formation of which, the workmen became subject in the worst degree to 

 remittent fevers, which were before that time unknown. It would be easy to 

 confirm this by analogous instances from many of the -well-dressed pleasure 

 grounds ornamented by water, which skirt the Thames near Walton and Chertsey ; 

 the produce of a well-known improving gardener " (Capability Brown)," who has 

 brought the intermittent to our doors under cover of the breeze of the violets, and 



